Professional Documents
Culture Documents
A project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland
Additional Highlights
Even nations that last summer had few people expressing optimism have come to have hope in an Obama presidency. Those
predicting better US relations with the rest of the world have jumped from 11 to 51 per cent in Turkey, 11 to 47 per cent in
Russia, 29 to 58 per cent in Egypt, and 39 to 68 per cent in China.
Interestingly, two of these countries showing the largest
improvement are majority Muslim countries (Egypt and Turkey).
Indonesians are also optimistic (64%) and have shown an 18-point
increase in optimism from last summer.
The most optimistic views are expressed in Ghana (87%) and in
Europe--in Italy (79%), Germany (78%), Spain (78%) and France
(76%)--followed by Mexico (74%) and Nigeria (74%). Americans are
also quite optimistic, with 65 per cent expressing hope that America's
international relations will improve.
The only two countries where less than a majority express optimism
are Japan and Russia. In Japan 48 per cent express optimism, while 37
per cent think relations will stay the same and 8 per cent think they
will get worse. In Russia, 47 per cent expect improvement, 26 per
cent no change and 5 per cent a worsening.
Europeans, in particular, are looking to the new US president to
prioritise tackling climate change, with 58 per cent of French, 63 per
cent of British, 65 per cent of Spanish and 68 per cent of Italians seeing
it as a top priority.
There are marked differences of opinion on the priority of brokering
peace in the Middle East, with 75 per cent of Egyptians but only 17 per
cent of Russians seeing it as a top priority for the Obama
administration. However, polling was completed in all countries except
Egypt and India prior to the current Gaza conflict began.
Americans' priorities are somewhat different from the world as a
whole. While they agree with the highest priority being the global
financial crisis (75% say top priority), they are higher than any other
country in placing a top priority (46%) on supporting the government of
Afghanistan against the Taliban. They also show substantial concern for
improving America's relations with the world - 60 per cent say it should be a top priority; this is substantially higher than the
global average (46%) saying that it should be top priority for the US to improve its relations with their region.
In total 17,356 citizens in Chile, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia,
Spain, Turkey, the UK and the USA were interviewed face-to-face or by telephone mainly in November and December 2008.
Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by the international polling firm GlobeScan and its research partners in each
country. In 5 of the 17 countries, the sample was limited to major urban areas. The margin of error per country ranges from +/-
2.4 to 4.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.
Polling from last summer was conducted in the same countries from 8 July to 15 September 2008.